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Is Delia Smith bad for the environment?

a456

a456

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 5, 2005
882
0
Delia Smith is a British cook who I'm sure is a global brand by now, famous for her cookbooks. It used to be that she used excessive amounts of fat and sugar in everything, but these days she is raving about using frozen produce. The other day she was promoting the use of frozen chickpeas to make hummus to save the hassle of soaking chickpeas overnight. Has she not heard of tinned chickpeas? Second, the making of hummus is far more intensive and taxing than the soaking. If you want hummus but don't want to soak the chickpeas or use tinned ones, then chances are you'll probably buy it readymade from the fridge. In addition to which you'll probably spend a good bit of time trying to figure out whether the supermarket you shop at actually sells frozen chickpeas. Now comes my real annoyance - we are trying to save the planet here lady and you are telling people to use more frozen produce - this means more carbon emissions and pollution from more freezers in supermarkets, more refrigeration lorries, and bigger (and/or more) freezers in people's homes, what you are advocating Delia is not sustainable! :mad:

We all love convenience, and we all lead busy lives, but what we need to have are handy friendly steps to help us grow and make more of our own produce fresh - makes the whole cooking and eating much more enjoyable and helps us slow down too.
 
What amazed me was when she whipped out a ready made risotto and then tried to pass it off as some fantastic Delia Smith recipe by adding some mushrooms to it and cooking it for 20 mins. It takes about 20 mins to make a risotto from scratch, and it's not difficult and will definitely be more tasty.

I thought the whole point of cooking shows was to teach you what to do when you didn't want to eat ready made food.
 
00hkelly said:
What amazed me was when she whipped out a ready made risotto and then tried to pass it off as some fantastic Delia Smith recipe by adding some mushrooms to it and cooking it for 20 mins. It takes about 20 mins to make a risotto from scratch, and it's not difficult and will definitely be more tasty.

I thought the whole point of cooking shows was to teach you what to do when you didn't want to eat ready made food.
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May be, her now famous rant, was the first sign that she's lost the plot.
 
Perhaps, but in the end getting people to eat more vegetables and less overall would greatly reduce environmental burden.
 
I don't like Delia's new approach. Why would anyone want to use ready made mash (smash?) in a cake? It's not like a lot of these things are hard to make. Hummus is easy peasy, as is making a cake and you can't beat a good homemade risotto (I had a good one the other night :D).

Lluckily there are plenty of other food writers and chefs who are promoting good seasonal, wholesome home-cooking. It's a shame that Delia is getting all of the attention.
 
Is Delia Smith bad for the environment?
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Not if she's ground up and added to the compost heap. Less hot air as well.

Gone right off her over the last ten years. Still, odd thread of the day award.
 
Apart from her 'recipe' for a bolognese sauce (which consisted of emptying a jar of tomato sauce into a pan and adding a tin of 75% mince meat) the single most infuriating thing about this bloody monstrosity of a TV show is the waste it generates.

Plastic bags of ready grated cheese and breadcrumbs, plastic pots of grated parmesan and ready whipped cream, plastic containers of ready boiled and peeled eggs? That's extra plastic for packaging and more lorries needed for transport - I hope all that money you're earning from the supermarkets and convenience food manufacturers that bear your 'Delia Cheat' badge is worth you ruining your reputation, Delia?

(Whilst I'm at it, another thing that pisses me off is that after seven minutes of the recent episode (before I turned it off) we had one recipe and about five minutes of her talking about Norwich City Football Club. Get a blog Delia, not a new BBC TV show that proves that you've totally misread where cooking is going - see Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recent campaigns for cooking with fresh, natural ingredients for a clue.)

Burn the witch, I say. :mad:
 
While she's not exactly my favourite TV chef I'm not sure she's worthy of this degree of hatred

Tbh I find TV chefs far too boring and generic, one rarely learns anything other than the odd recipe, my girlfriend is something of a molecular gastronomist, I would *love* a cooking program that taught one more about one's diet nutrition and the chemistry behind cooking.

I just highly doubt it would gain any kind of backing...
 
Well I for one love to cook with fresh ingredients - when I have the time, I can't rightfully say that I do - on those occasions semi prepared food ain't too bad - it goes quicker to cook leaving me with more spare time. This is maybe not overly great for the environment, but prepackaged food seems to be a lot less problematic than say driving / transport of goods / burning of forests.

Everyone isn't a jamie oliver and having a cooking show for "the rest of us" isn't so bad, if her cooking show isn't your cup of tea get some coffee
 
Mord said:
Awesome, I don't watch television so didn't have a clue :eek:
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He used to write a column in the Weekend Guardian where he did all sorts of weird and wonderful things with food. Look him up; I'm pretty sure you'd find his books and TV programmes fascinating. :)
 
Mord said:
Awesome, I don't watch television so didn't have a clue :eek:
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Yeah, Heston is great. I was going to suggest him when I saw your post but got here too late.

There is nothing wrong with using some pre prepared food in cooking (canned chopped tomatoes.etc) It's just the fact that Delia is trying to pass off what are basically ready meals as her own food. It's not cooking, it's just b******s. While some of the recipes weren't that bad others are absolutely shameful. At the end of the day, chefs should be encouraging people to cook with fresh and seasonal ingredients which are healthier and taste better.

Why bung tinned meat into a pan for Bolognese when you can get some chopped tomatoes, cut up some bacon and put some spinach leaves in a pan and have a healthy and yummy pasta sauce in no time. If you are going to make something, might as well do it properly. Better yet on the weekends make your own and freeze portions of it for easy use later!
 
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